(Newser)
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Democrats don't just think that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from an investigation into Russian ties with the Trump campaign, they think he should step down from his post, period. "The Attorney General must resign," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a statement, per the Hill, because he "lied under oath." Her call for him to resign, echoed by Democrats including Elijah Cummings in the House and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, comes after the Washington Post reported that he met with the Russian ambassador to the US twice during the 2016 campaign. Sessions, an early Trump backer, says he did nothing wrong because he met with Sergey Kislyak in his capacity as a senator, not as an advocate for Trump. During his confirmation hearing, he declared, "I did not have communications with the Russians."

"There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians," said Pelosi. The White House is pushing back at such statements as partisan attacks, reports the New York Times, and Sessions asserted anew that he never discussed the campaign with Kislyak. Democrats have been calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed, and the latest revelations give them new ammunition. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday that while he doesn't know if the Trump campaign had improper communications with Russians, the attorney general would have to recuse himself from an investigation. "It is clear to me that Jeff Sessions, who is my dear friend, cannot make this decision about Trump," he said, per Politico.